Former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick’s house in Novi is on the cusp of foreclosure because the property taxes have not been paid in almost three years, according to public records that reveal the imperiled state of the corrupt former politician’s most valuable asset.
More than $50,600 in property taxes are owed at a time when federal prosecutors are seizing money from Kilpatrick’s bank accounts in an ongoing hunt for assets. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Detroit has spent years seeking funds to apply toward the $823,649 in restitution Kilpatrick owes taxpayers as part of his 2013 public corruption conviction.
Property records show taxes on the 3,874-square-foot, five-bed, four-and-a-half-bath home ―worth an estimated $1 million ―have not been paid since December 2023 and that the home was forfeited to the Oakland County Treasurer’s Office on March 1 ― a step taken when taxes have gone unpaid for two years. The records also shed light on Kilpatrick’s finances after he reached a secret deal with prosecutors to pay restitution.
Federal prosecutors filed a lien on the posh suburban home in January as part of a broader attempt to pressure Kilpatrick into paying restitution. But if the home is foreclosed and sold for less than market value, that would mean less money for Detroit taxpayers, legal experts said.
“I think the government would potentially get less money when the house is foreclosed, is my guess,” said criminal defense lawyer Keith Corbett, a former federal prosecutor who was the chief of the Organized Crime Strike Force in Detroit.
Kilpatrick, 55, did not respond to messages seeking comment.
Foreclosure is a three-year process. In Kilpatrick’s case, $50,608.76 in property taxes from 2024-25 remain unpaid. That means the suburban house could be foreclosed early next year without payment.
“The redemption deadline on the 2024 delinquent property taxes is March 31, 2027, which is the earliest possible property tax foreclosure,” Renee Walker, spokeswoman for the Oakland County Treasurer’s Office, wrote in an email to The News. “However, the property owner has full rights to pay in full by the redemption deadline of March 31, 2027.”
Other tax and financial issues loom for Kwame Kilpatrick
Property taxes, however, are not Kilpatrick’s only financial problem.
On July 27, 2022, about 17 months after Kilpatrick left prison, the Internal Revenue Service filed a lien against him for $634,655 in unpaid income taxes, according to Georgia Superior Court records obtained by The News.
And in April 2018, a federal judge in Detroit awarded a nearly $7.5 million judgment to a firm owned by minority contractor Willie McCormick.
McCormick had sued the former mayor and contractor Bobby Ferguson in 2012, alleging they ran a secret scheme to steer water department work to favored firms.
Kilpatrick, Ferguson and former mayoral aide Derrick Miller never responded to the civil lawsuit, and McCormick received a default judgment in 2016. A federal magistrate judge later issued a recommendation that McCormick receive $7,477,874, which represents lost profits on three Detroit Water and Sewerage Department contracts.
What are the odds that prosecutors can collect Kilpatrick’s restitution?
Prosecutors face steep odds in collecting the restitution, considering an ex-con’s inability to pay and lenient payment plans that can span centuries.
An analysis by the U.S. Government Accountability Office showed federal prosecutors nationwide collected $2.95 billion in restitution from 2014-16. But at the end of that period, $110 billion in restitution remained unpaid, and prosecutors said most of that amount, $100 billion, was uncollectible.
Ex-cons, like Kilpatrick, are often given extraordinary restitution terms.
Kilpatrick’s friend and administration official, Derrick Miller, was given 100 years to pay taxes to the Internal Revenue Service. U.S. District Judge Nancy Edmunds set the 100-year payment plan after she spared Miller from spending a day in prison in 2014.
Miller, the city’s chief administrative officer, pleaded guilty to taking $115,000 in kickbacks from a real estate broker and sharing the cash with Kilpatrick.
Kilpatrick’s co-defendant in the corruption trial, Detroit contractor Bobby Ferguson, was given more than 2,100 years to pay $2.6 million in restitution.
Ferguson, 57, was released on compassionate grounds from a 21-year sentence in April 2021 as prison officials and judges tried to stem the spread of COVID-19. President Donald Trump commuted Kilpatrick’s 28-year sentence in January 2021, but left intact the restitution order.
When taxes were paid and not paid on Kilpatrick’s Novi house
The home east of the intersection of Beck and W. Nine Mile is owned by Pathfinder Consulting Firm LLC, a corporation that lists Kilpatrick’s wife, LaTicia Kilpatrick, as the resident agent. Federal prosecutors, however, have argued in court filings that Pathfinder and LaTicia Kilpatrick are nominees and that Kwame Kilpatrick has a financial interest in the home and money found in bank accounts.
Pathfinder bought the home for $807,000 in December 2023 after obtaining a $645,600 mortgage, property records show.
Winter property taxes totaling $4,561.56 were paid within days of the home purchase, Novi records show. But no property taxes have been paid since December 2023.
Meanwhile, Kilpatrick reported earning $10,000 a month from his job working for a Tennessee nonprofit and leasing luxury vehicles, including an Infiniti QX80 sport utility vehicle worth $89,819. His mother, the late Democratic Detroit Congresswoman Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, co-signed on the lease.
Prosecutors have had limited success in finding and seizing money belonging to Kilpatrick.
Earlier this month, prosecutors found more than $13,000 in a Pathfinder account at Comerica Bank.
Kilpatrick criticized the government’s ongoing search for money and assets.
“This Comerica business account, along with my own personal account have been points of open and honest discussions with federal authorities since December,” Kilpatrick told Deadline Detroit. “I do not have, nor have I ever had, an account at Comerica Bank. The targeting of her business and its associated properties is unjustified, selective and deeply concerning.”
In November 2024, a federal judge allowed prosecutors to seize $6,704 from Kilpatrick and apply it toward restitution. The order came seven months after prosecutors revealed they had discovered money in a Michigan Treasury Department account during an ongoing hunt for assets belonging to Kilpatrick.
Restitution was imposed as part of Kilpatrick’s 2013 racketeering conspiracy conviction after he was accused of running a criminal enterprise out of Detroit City Hall, rigging bids and pocketing more than $840,000 in bribes and kickbacks.
Prosecutors have eyed valuable homes in other cases.
More than a decade ago, tax authorities filed a lien on a West Bloomfield home owned by Jack Giacalone, a reputed organized crime leader in Metro Detroit.
At the time, the government was trying to collect a $546,515 tax debt. Giacalone’s wife fought the lien, arguing she owned the home, and later settled with the government, which won the right to half the home’s equity. The government agreed not to enforce liens as long as Deborah Giacalone or the couple’s daughter lived in the home.
rsnell@detroitnews.com
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Foreclosure looms at Kwame Kilpatrick’s $1M house in posh suburb
Reporting by Robert Snell, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
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